Searching with Wildcards stopped working
Based on we should be able to use an asterisk (*) for multiple characters or a question mark (?) for a single character.
It worked before so I have several bookmarks, for example "searching for someone named 李段* whose father is 李爾*"
Unfortunately they stopped working since a few months ago. Now it says "No Results Found".
Answers
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As the message indicates, less is more. Removing the "exact" selections in your search gives 842,804 results for your search.
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Two issues
- It used to work as expected (thus the bookmarks) but stopped working a few months ago.
- Removing the "exact" returns incorrect results, which makes this feature useless.
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I notice you provide an example of using a wildcard with Chinese characters. I wonder if you have tried to replicate the problem with letters from the Roman / Latin alphabet?
My problem with wildcards relates to the inconsistency of the search engine in providing (or not) results. It sometimes does need page refreshes, after the initial attempt, to get results to appear. However, I was successful, at the first attempt, in getting a listing - even by using wildcards in a first name search - on condition I added data to one other field - see the example at https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.anyPlace=England%2C%20United%20Kingdom&q.anyPlace.exact=on&q.givenName=g%2Areg%2Ary&q.givenName.exact=on
Another random search, on a last name (see https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.surname=g%2Aa%2Ast%2A&q.surname.exact=on ) , returned over seven million results!
So, obviously there are times when the use of a wildcard would be rather pointless, but - in summary - I don't seem to be experiencing the difficulties you are having, so would suggest it might relate to the script - in spite of your saying this has not been a restricting factor in the past.
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Interestingly, I did just manage to get the "No Results Found" page when searching for an individual, using wildcards, just now. However, this transpired to relate to the fact I was trying to search for a birth and a marriage at the same time. Once I removed the birth data I'd inputted, the marriage result appeared immediately. Can you confirm you were not trying to perform a single search for multiple events, as this indeed can be a factor in getting the No Results Found message - even when wildcards have not been inputted?
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Something must've changed, but I don't think it has anything to do with wildcards. Those still work the same as usual, for me. It may have something to do with the exact checkboxes, but again, I don't notice any change in their behavior in my searches.
I am hampered in assessing the example given by my utter and complete lack of any ability to read Chinese, but it seems to me that the problem is that the Family Tree doesn't contain (or no longer contains) any entries with the 段 glyph at the beginning of a given/personal name. Without more knowledge of the antecedents, or the topic in general, I can't even speculate on why that would be. How many profiles are we talking about here? How large is the Chinese part of FS's tree? Is it plausible that someone substituted some other character in all of the names that used 段 previously?
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if you have tried to replicate the problem with letters from the Roman / Latin alphabet?
No, because less than half of the Chinese records come with Roman / Latin alphabet.
Can you confirm you were not trying to perform a single search for multiple events?
I am only searching by the individual's name and his father's name, not with any other criteria.
How many profiles are we talking about here?
Based on the 昭穆 or 字輩 (the generational naming convention) I expected to see hundreds to thousands.
Is it plausible that someone substituted some other character in all of the names that used 段 previously?
No, it is just the wildcard stopped working with Chinese characters in general, not just for a specific character.
- Another bookmark for "李普* whose father is 李光*". It used to work and now return nothing as well. https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.fatherGivenName=%E5%85%89%2A&q.fatherGivenName.exact=on&q.fatherSurname=%E6%9D%8E&q.fatherSurname.exact=on&q.givenName=%E6%99%AE%2A&q.givenName.exact=on&q.sex=Male&q.surname=%E6%9D%8E&q.surname.exact=on
- While searching for "伯*" it also returns "*伯". https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.givenName=%E4%BC%AF%2A&q.givenName.exact=on&q.sex=Male&q.surname=%E6%9D%8E&q.surname.exact=on
Another pair of queries
- While searching with exact match it returns three results without wildcard. There should be 20+ rows. https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.givenName=%2A%E7%B9%B9&q.givenName.exact=on&q.sex=Male&q.surname=%E6%9D%8E&q.surname.exact=on
- While searching without exact match it returns incorrect results since row 4. https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.givenName=%2A%E7%B9%B9&q.sex=Male&q.surname=%E6%9D%8E
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I would recommend that you join and ask your question in the Chinese Research group to get more experienced help from helpers in the Chinese language. If anyone in that group is experiencing the same problem with the wildcard searches they might also have information helpful to your research.
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